-- Great chunks of space are planned in mixed-use developments that include retail and hotel projects as well as office space.

-- The quality of projects has escalated dramatically over the past five years. Top-quality finish and landscaping have put Central Florida space on a par with class A space anywhere in the nation, market specialists say.

-- In the Daytona Beach market, there has been substantial rehabilitation of older buildings downtown. There also has been strong activity in converting older residences to office space.

-- In the Melbourne market, the development emphasis has been on office/showroom space.

In some of the space-bloated Orlando suburban submarkets, a year's free rent is common on a five-year lease.

According to the most recent survey by Barbour & Monroe Marketing Research, Orlando, a lot of the excess space is in the Maitland Center area. That suburban submarket has a 40 percent vacancy rate.

Barbour & Monroe said the Orlando market -- Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties -- absorbed 1.465 million square feet of space last year and estimated absorption this year will be just less than 1.6 million square feet. The survey found 10.62 million square feet rented in the market. The survey covered 12.79 million square feet.

Some 3.93 million square feet, about a three-year supply of space, is available for lease, the survey found. That figure includes 1.755 million square feet of space under construction.

Proposed construction includes the 204,000-square-foot Harvest Lake Executive Center by Condev Corp. on 27 acres west of its Lake Lucien Executive Center, a mixed-use development called Maitland Summit with 600,000 square feet of office space along the extension of Maitland Boulevard west of Maitland Center and several hundred thousand square feet of office space east of Interstate 4 along Wymore Road under consideration by The Landmarks Group and Jim Wilson Associates.

Among the new projects is a 160,000-square-foot building that Cabot, Cabot & Forbes will build on acreage bought from CMEI Inc. of Atlanta, developer of Maitland Center. Hartford Insurance Co. will be the anchor tenant.

James Kersey, Orlando manager for Lincoln Property Co., developer of three office buildings within Maitland Center, said he thinks construction of suburban space will slow down because of the inventory.

Lenders likely will insist on heavy preleasing before committing funds to a project, he said.

Lincoln is a joint venture partner in Sun Bank Center, a mixed-use development planned for downtown Orlando, and was selected by the city to develop a festival shopping center on a parking lot across Church Street from the center. Sun Bank Center is planned as a 600,000-square-foot office building anchored by Sun Bank, a hotel, shops and a parking garage.

Kersey said construction on Sun Bank Center should start this summer. Both the bank center and the shopping center should open in late 1987, he said.

He estimated ''pure'' downtown space absorption -- excluding preleasing -- at more than 300,000 square feet annually and said he expects that to increase by 8 percent to 10 percent a year.

Also expected to be under construction this summer is du Pont Centre, another major mixed-use downtown development. With plans for 1.3 million square feet of office space, 200,000 square feet of retail space, two hotels and four parking garages, the development is six blocks north of Sun Bank Center on Orange Avenue. The first phase, a 425,000-square-foot office building, two parking garages and a 250-room hotel, is to open in the spring of 1987.

The specter of that competition is going to make Jaymont Properties ''really aggressive'' in leasing the 244,000-square-foot 111 North Orange Building now under construction, said Floyd S. Faucette, president of Jaymont Realty, leasing agent for the building.

Faucette said he will be wheeling and dealing to get the building leased quickly. He expects first tenants to move into the building in January 1986.

Faucette pegged the vacancy rate of the 2 million square feet of new class A space downtown at 18 percent to 20 percent. Rates range from $16 to $21 a square foot on an annual basis with effective rates after accounting for free rent and other concessions about in the middle of that range, he said.